The Less-covered Terrorism Threat That Exists Within America's Borders

Sitting in for Glenn on radio Tuesday, John Cardillo spent time discussing a threat he said isn't talked about nearly enough.

"If we sealed the borders tomorrow, if somehow we were able to wave a magic wand and we were able to build a 20-foot wall around the United States and we were able to mine every harbor and do these Draconian unconstitutional things, we still would only make a slight dent in a terror threat," Cardillo said.

Listen to the segment or read the transcript below.

JOHN: So we've been talking this hour about terror and some of the false narratives you've been sold by the progressive left, with regards to vetting of refugees, and regards to profiling of bad guys, no matter who those bad guys are, whether they be Islamic terrorists or La Cosa Nostra, the Italian mob. I don't discriminate. Bad guys who want to hurt people are bad guys. I want to deploy the best tactics to stop them.

But one of the things we don't speak about enough -- and I'm guilty of this as well on my show. I touch on it. But I don't touch on it anywhere near enough is a threat that's right here at home.

See, if we sealed the borders tomorrow, if somehow we were able to wave a magic wand and we were able to build a 20-foot wall around the United States and we were able to mine every harbor and do these Draconian unconstitutional things, we still would only make a slight dent in a terror threat.

And you're saying, Cardillo, you're out of your mind, what are you talking about? You sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist.

Well, no, I'm not. Because one of the things you don't hear enough about are the radical converts in prisons.

Remember, we have a very large prison population in the United States.

Now, about a year and a half ago, I had Pat Donely (phonetic) on my show, and he's a world expert with regards to prison conversion to Islam, the radicalization and weaponization of those converts. He spent about 30 years at New York City Department of Corrections. He's written several books on this and then worked with our intelligence community, training special operators on how to identify those who might be converts for America on the battlefield overseas.

And when we first spoke, I said, well, you know, I'm reading that there are about 30- to 40,000 people who convert to Islam yearly in US prisons and jails. Right? Prison is different from jail. Jail is that holding facility for misdemeanors. And before you face trial, prison is where you go after convicted.

So whether it be federal, state, local, about 30- to 40,000 people convert yearly. And I said to him, "Well, you know, how many though do you think would radicalize and weaponize?" And he said, "Oh, it's one percent or sub one percent." And I said, "Okay. Well, that's still a lot. That's still 3- to 400 people. The Orlando massacre at the gay club was carried out by one guy. San Bernardino by two terrorists. So 3- to 400 terrorists, half of which let's say might potentially be released from incarceration is pretty scary. Well, about eight, nine months later, had him on the show again, and that's his day-to-day job. He studies this. He trains our special operations community, our intelligence community.

I said, "So, Pat, is the number still hanging around 1 percent?" He said, "No, that number is creeping up to 10 percent," with the proliferation of ISIS's virtual caliphate and how well they're using social media and how they're spreading their message and going after a younger subset.

And so now let's think about how terrifying this is, right? If tomorrow, we were able to stop, 100 percent of the immigration -- from everybody. Forget even those from the 34 nations -- from everybody. Somebody that isn't in the US as of right now, never stepped foot in our nation and we were able to somehow wave a wand and get rid of everyone who would ever come here who happened to commit acts of terror, we would still be converting in our prisons and jails yearly about 3,000 people with the potential to radicalize and weaponize against us. And, again, I'm being conservative when I say half will be released shortly after that.

The number is a lot higher because our jails are overcrowded and we tend to release prisoners long before they should be. So while we're so focused on the refugee problem -- and we need to be. We need to be diligent. We need to be vigilant.

While we're focused on that, we also need to keep our eye on the ball here at home. Because if we don't do that, if we put ourselves in a position where we ignore the threat that's already here, where we don't put as much money and time and training and resources into the intelligence component of finding how who these people are, what they're doing -- and, again, what does that require when they leave prison? Well, that's going to require profiling and monitoring. And I spoke about it a minute ago, the progressive left doesn't want to do that. So they know full well that there is no mechanism right now to track these people once they leave the facilities.

But one thing I found out about seven, eight months ago -- and, Tiffany, I don't know if you know this: There's a congressman in Tennessee, and I forget his name. I think maybe Fincher. I'm not sure if that's him. But he -- he had sponsored a bill -- I don't know if it's Corker. I think it's Fincher -- something. I'll find that for you.

He is sponsoring a bill to do something that I assumed was being done. And, boy, was I ignorant. And that is to vet clergy that come into prisons. Right now, imams that are coming into prisons who are allowed to speak confidentially with inmates, they have the same confidential privileges as an attorney, they're not vetted.

It doesn't matter if that imam preaches Islamic jihad, hellfire and brimstone, night and day, calls for death to America, death to infidels, they can walk into a prison and speak unmonitored, unrecorded, whether it be audio or video, to these prisoners. They're allowed to walk into that prison, radicalize and weaponize inmates. And think about inmates, they're already prone to violence. They already hate the government because the government incarcerated them. And they're pre-disposed to hate Americans that they've committed crimes upon.

And we don't have one mechanism in place to vet these people. On the federal level, on the state level, or at the local level. And I believe that law would only apply to federal prison, which would still leave all of the state prisons and all of the local jail facilities open and vulnerable to conversion.

And it really is so dangerous. And we're not hearing enough about this. I went back through archives, CNN never -- maybe they did. But I couldn't find -- let me preface this by saying, I couldn't find one CNN story on this, in-depth. I couldn't find a Fox News story on this.

I saw pieces on blogs touching on this. But I could not find an ABC story, an NBC News story, a CBS News story on this.

The mainstream media is ignoring this. And they have the intelligence. They're being advised by their contributors, their security, their intelligence -- contributors are telling them about this. They're not running the stories.

And it goes back to ideology, right? It goes back to the ideology of the radical Islamist and the people that they are taught.

When they're radicalized and weaponized, they're not just taught to hate people in general. They're taught to specifically hate Christians. And, Tiffany, you have family in the Middle East. I mean, you have experience with this.

TIFFANY: Yeah, my family survived Islamic persecution in Iraq. I mean, they fled. They were forced to be refugees. My father fought in the Israeli War of Independence in '48. So he fought them during a Polgram (phonetic) in Baghdad as a child and then again in '48 in Israel.

And what a lot of Westerners don't understand is that this is truly systemic. Even if a minuscule portion of the world Muslim population will actually pull the trigger and become terrorists, the greater number actually harbor these very radical ideas that are rooted in the Koran.

I mean, there are numerous Koranic verses and hadis (phonetic) that I could quote that talk about the subjugation and hatred for Jews -- and to a lesser extent Christians. But definitely Christians as well.

And this is systemic in Islam. There is a tribal mindset that the western world really grapples with and has a hard time understanding.

But people who come from the Islamic world like my family -- and be they Jews, Christian, Yazidi, anyone who is persecuted -- and there are obviously wonderful Muslims. I don't want to always have to add that qualifier. Of course, there are.

But by and large, there is a tribal mindset that is taught to hate and is taught to basically, you know, oppress and subjugate those who aren't like them.

JOHN: Well, and let me put this in perspective. Because you touched on an interesting point and a critical point, right? There are good people around the world -- no matter your faith, your orientation, your race, your creed.

And so let's be very, very generous here. There's 1.7 billion Muslims in the world. Let's say -- now, even the most progressive analysts will say, and only 1 percent will radicalize and potentially weaponize as terrorists.

Well, that's 17 million.

So let's you and I be a little more generous. Let's say half a percent. That's eight and a half million. No. Let's say a quarter percent.

4.25 million Muslims around the world, a quarter percent, where one-fourth of what the progressive analysts even will acknowledge.

That's 4.25 million terrorists. The combined strength of the United States military, all services, and the active law enforcement community, as we sit here today is about 3 million. They still outnumber us by 1.5 million. To me, that's scary. And that's a number you don't hear.

TIFFANY: Listen, even Pew research did extensive studies. I mean, we're talking about Muslims who want Sharia as the law of the land. This is in countries that aren't even as radical as Saudi Arabia. The majority want Sharia to be the law of the land. In Egypt, 85 percent support the executing of apostates. Those are infidels. Those are non-Muslims.

It's time for our April 29, 2019 edition of our Candidate Power Rankings. We get to add two new candidates, write about a bunch of people that have little to no chance of winning, and thank the heavens we are one day closer to the end of all of this.

In case you're new here, read our explainer about how all of this works:

The 2020 Democratic primary power rankings are an attempt to make sense out of the chaos of the largest field of candidates in global history.

Each candidate gets a unique score in at least thirty categories, measuring data like polling, prediction markets, fundraising, fundamentals, media coverage, and more. The result is a candidate score between 0-100. These numbers will change from week to week as the race changes.

The power rankings are less a prediction on who will win the nomination, and more a snapshot of the state of the race at any given time. However, early on, the model gives more weight to fundamentals and potentials, and later will begin to prioritize polling and realities on the ground.

These power rankings include only announced candidates. So, when you say "WAIT!! WHERE'S XXXXX????" Read the earlier sentence again.

If you're like me, when you read power rankings about sports, you've already skipped ahead to the list. So, here we go.

17. Eric Swalwell: 20.2 (Last week: 16th / 20.2)

Democrats said there was obstruction in the Mueller report. Swalwell said there “certainly" was collusion.

Democrats said surveillance of the Trump campaign was no big deal. Swalwell said there was no need to apologize even if it was.

Democrats said William Barr mishandled the release of the Mueller report. Swalwell said he must resign.

Democrats say they want gun restrictions. Swalwell wants them all melted down and the liquid metal to be poured on the heads of NRA members. (Probably.)

16. Seth Moulton: 20.6 (NEW)

Who is Seth Moulton?

No, I'm asking.

Moulton falls into the category of congressman looking to raise his profile and make his future fundraising easier— not someone who is actually competing for the presidency.

He tried to block Nancy Pelosi as speaker, so whatever help he could get from the establishment is as dry as Pelosi's eyes when the Botox holds them open for too long.

Moulton is a veteran, and his military service alone is enough to tell you that he's done more with his life than I'll ever do with mine. But it's hard to see the road to the White House for a complete unknown in a large field of knowns.

Don't take my word for it, instead read this depressing story that he's actually telling people on purpose:

"I said, you know, part of my job is take tough questions," Moulton told the gathered business and political leaders. "You can ask even really difficult questions. And there was still silence. And then finally, someone in the way back of the room raised her hand, and she said, 'Who are you?' "

14. Tulsi Gabbard: 25.2 (Last week: 14th / 25.9)

No word on who won the coveted handi-capable gender-neutral sodium-sensitive sub-demographic.

She received a mostly false rating for her attack on the Trump administration regarding its new policy on pork inspections, a topic not exactly leading the news cycle. Being from Hawaii, the state which leads the nation in Spam consumption, she was probably surprised when this didn't go mega viral.

13. Andrew Yang: 27.2 (Last week: 12th / 27.1)

Yang has a few go-to lines when he's on the campaign trail, such as: "The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math." Another is apparently the Jeb-esque "Chant my name! Chant my name!"

Yang continues to be one of the more interesting candidates in this race, essentially running a remix of the "One Tough Nerd" formula that worked for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

I highly recommend listening to his interview with Ben Shapiro, where Yang earns respect as the only Democratic presidential candidate in modern history to actually show up to a challenging and in-depth interview with a knowledgeable conservative.

But hidden in the Shapiro interview is the nasty little secret of the Yang campaign. His policy prescriptions, while still very liberal, come off as far too sane for him to compete in this Stalin look-alike contest.

Seems like a logical question, but only someone who is high on tailpipe fumes would think it was okay to ask in a Democratic primary. Hickenlooper would be better served by just transitioning to a female and demanding other candidates are asked why they don't have a transgendered VP.

10. Julian Castro: 35.7 (Last week: 9th / 36.2)

Lowering expectations is a useful strategy when your wife asks you to put together an Ikea end table, or when you've successfully convinced Charlize Theron to come home with you. But is it a successful campaign strategy?

Julian Castro is about to find out. He thinks the fact that everyone thinks he's crashing and burning on the campaign trail so far is an "advantage." Perhaps he can take the rest of the field by surprise on Super Tuesday when they finally realize he's actually running.

7. Elizabeth Warren: 45.3 (Last week: 6th / 46.0)

Elizabeth Warren is bad at everything she does while she's campaigning. I don't really even watch Game of Thrones, and the idea that Warren would write a story about how the show proves we need more powerful women makes me cringe.

Of course, more powerful people of all the 39,343 genders are welcome, but it's such a transparent attempt at jumping on the back of a pop-culture event to pander to female voters, it's sickening.

6. Cory Booker: 54.9 (Last week: 5th / 55.5)

Booker is tied with Kamala Harris for the most missed Senate votes of the campaign so far. He gets criticized for this, but I think he should miss even more votes.

Booker is also pushing a national day off on Election Day—because the approximately six months of early voting allowed in every state just isn't enough.

Of course, making it easier to vote doesn't mean people are going to vote for Booker. So he's throwing trillions of dollars in bribes (my word, not his) to seal the deal.

Bookermania is in full effect, with 40 whole people showing up to his appearance in Nevada. Local press noted that the people were of "varying ages," an important distinction to most other crowds, which are entirely comprised of people with the same birthday.

5. Robert Francis O’Rourke: 60.2 (Last week: 4th /62.6)

Kirsten Gillibrand gave less than 2% of her income to charity. The good news is that she gave about seven times as much as Beto O'Rourke. Robert Francis, or Bob Frank, also happens to be one of the wealthiest candidates in the race. His late seventies father-in-law has been estimated to be worth as much as $20 billion, though the number is more likely to be a paltry $500 million.

He's also all but disappeared. It's a long race, and you don't win a nomination in April of the year before election day. If he's being frugal and figuring out what he believes, it might be a good move.

But it's notable that all the "pretty boy" hype that Bob Frank owned going into this race has been handed over to Mayor Pete. Perhaps Beto is spending his time working on curbing the sweating, the hand gestures, and the issues with jumping on counters like a feline.

4. Pete Buttigieg: 62.9 (Last week: 3rd / 62.9)

When we first put candidates in tiers earlier this year, we broke everyone into five categories from "Front Runners" to "Eh, no." In the middle is a category called "Maybe, if everything goes right," and that's where we put Pete Buttigieg.

Well, everything has gone right so far. But Mayor Pete will be interested to learn that the other 19 candidates in this race are not going to hand him this nomination. Eventually, they will start saying negative things about him (they've started the opposition research process already), and it will be interesting to see how Petey deals with the pressure. We've already seen how it has affected Beto in a similar situation.

The media has spoken endlessly about the sexual orientation of Buttigieg, but not every Democratic activist is impressed. Barney Frank thinks the main reason he's getting this amount of attention is because he is gay. And for some, being a gay man just means you're a man, which isn't good enough.

When you base your vote on a candidate's genitals, things can get confusing.

Other headlines:

Pete Buttigieg sides with striking Stop & Shop workers "You're not free if you work for a living and you can't get by," Buttigieg said ahead of a weekend of campaigning in New Hampshire. (Note: This is a similar argument used to defend slavery... "By 1860 it had become a standard part of the proslavery rationale, made it a central thesis in their arguments. (1) that the condition of the so-called free worker of the North was already fearful and was becoming increasingly more horrible; (2) that the free-labor system enslaved the worker just as much as the chattel-slavery system; and (3) that wage slavery was infinitely worse for the worker than chattel slavery.")

3. Kamala Harris: 68.6 (Last week: 1st / 69.1)

#1 - Harris launched with much fanfare and an adoring media. She has since lost her momentum. Mayor Pete and former Mayor Bernie have the hype, and Kamala is fading.

#2 - Harris is playing the long game. She showed she can make an impact with her launch, but realizes that a media "win" ten months before an important primary means nothing. She's working behind the scenes and cleaning up with donations, prominent supporters, and loads of celebrities to execute an Obama style onslaught.

I tend to be in category 2, but I admit that's somewhat speculative. Harris seems to be well positioned to make a serious run, locking up more than double the amount of big Clinton and Obama fundraisers than any other candidate.

One interesting policy development for Harris that may hurt her in the primary is her lack of utter disgust for the nation of Israel. There's basically one acceptable position in a Democratic primary when it comes to Israel, which is that it's a racist and terrorist state, existing only to torture innocent Palestinians.

Certainly no one is going to mistake Harris for Donald Trump, but a paragraph like this is poison to the modern Democratic primary voter:

"Her support for Israel is central to who she is," Harris' campaign communications director, Lily Adams, told McClatchy. "She is firm in her belief that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, including against rocket attacks from Gaza."

Just portraying the rocket attacks as "attacks" is controversial these days for Democrats, and claiming they are responses to attacks indicates you think the Jeeeewwwwwwwws aren't the ones responsible for the start of every hostility. Heresy!

2. Bernie Sanders: 69.2 (Last week: 2nd / 68.3)

It's entirely consistent with Sandersism to avoid giving to private charity. Why would you? Sanders believes the government does everything better than the private sector. He should be giving his money to the government.

Of course, he doesn't. He takes the tax breaks from the evil Trump tax plan he derides. He spends his money on fabulous vacation homes. He believes in socialism for thee, not for me.

1. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.: 78.8 (NEW)

Joe has run for president 113 times during his illustrious career, successfully capturing the presidency in approximately zero of his campaigns.

However, when the eternally woke Barack Obama had a chance to elevate a person of color, woman, or anything from the rainbow colored QUILTBAG, he instead chose the oldest, straightest, whitest guy he could find, and our man Robinette was the beneficiary.

Biden has been through a lot, much of it of his own making. Forget about his plagiarism and propensity to get a nostril full of each passing females' hair, his dealings while vice president in both Ukraine and China are a major general election vulnerability— not to mention a legal vulnerability for his children. But hey, win the presidency and you can pardon everyone, right?

His supposed appeal to rust belt voters makes him, on paper, a great candidate to take on Trump. The Clinton loss hinged on about 40,000 voters changing their mind from Hillary to Donald in a few states—the exact areas where victory could possibly be secured by someone named "Middle Class Joe" (as he alone calls himself.)

No one loves Joe Biden more than Joe Biden, and there's a relatively convincing case for his candidacy. But we must remember this unquestionable truth: Joe Biden is not good at running for president.

If only Karl Marx were alive today to see his wackiest ideas being completely paraded around. He would be so proud. I can see him now: Sprawled out on his hammock from REI, fiddling around for the last vegan potato chip in the bag as he binge-watches Academy Awards on his 70-inch smart TV. In between glances at his iPhone X (he's got a massive Twitter following), he sips Pepsi. In his Patagonia t-shirt and NIKE tennis shoes, he writes a line or two about "oppression" and "the have-nots" as part of his job for Google.

His house is loaded with fresh products from all the woke companies. In the fridge, he's got Starbucks, he loves their soy milk. He's got Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. He tells everyone that, if he shaved, he'd use Gillette, on account of the way they stand up for the Have-Nots. But, really, Marx uses Dollar Shave Club because it's cheaper, a higher quality. Secretly, he loves Chic-Fil-A. He buys all his comic books off Amazon. The truth is, he never thought people would actually try to make the whole "communism" thing work.

Companies have adopted a form of socialism that is sometimes called woke capitalism. They use their status as corporations to spread a socialist message and encourage people to do their part in social justice. The idea of companies in America using socialism at all is as confusing and ridiculous as a donkey in a prom dress: How did this happen? Is it a joke? Why is nobody bursting out in laughter? How far is this actually going to go? Does someone actually believe that they can take a donkey to prom?

Companies have adopted a form of socialism that is sometimes called woke capitalism.

On the micro level, Netflix has made some socialist moves: The "like/dislike" voting system was replaced after a Netflix-sponsored stand-up special by Amy Schumer received as tidal wave of thumb-downs. This summer, Netflix will take it a step further in the name of squashing dissent by disabling user comments and reviews. And of course most of us share a Netflix account with any number of people. Beyond that, they're as capitalist as the next mega-company.

Except for one area: propaganda. Netflix has started making movie-length advertisements for socialism. They call them "documentaries," but we know better than that. The most recent example is "Knock Down the House," which comes out tomorrow. The 86-minute-long commercial for socialism follows four "progressive Democrat" women who ran in the 2018 midterms, including our favorite socialist AOC.

Here's a snippet from the movie so good that you'll have to fight the urge to wave your USSR flag around the room:

This is what the mainstream media wants you to believe. They want you to be moved. They want the soundtrack to inspire you to go out and do something.

Just look at how the mainstream media treated the recent high-gloss "documentary" about Ilhan Omar, "Time for Ilhan." It received overwhelmingly bad ratings on IMDb and other user-review platforms, but got a whopping 93% on the media aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

This is exactly what the media wants you to think of when you hear the word socialism. Change. Empowerment. Strength. Diversity. They spend so much energy trying to make socialism cool. They gloss right over the unbelievable death toll. BlazeTV's own Matt Kibbe made a great video on this exact topic.

Any notion of socialism in America is a luxury, made possible by capitalism. The woke companies aren't actually doing anything for socialism. If they're lucky, they might get a boost in sales, which is the only thing they want anyway.

We want to show you the truth. We want to tell you the stories you won't hear anywhere else, not on Netflix, not at some movie festival. We're going to tell you what mainstream media doesn't want you to know.

Look at how much history we've lost over the years. They changed it slowly. But they had to. Because textbooks were out. So people were watching textbooks. It was printed. You would bring the book home. Mom and dad might go through it and check it out. So you had to slowly do things.

Well, they're not anymore. There are no textbooks anymore. Now, you just change them overnight. And we are losing new history. History is being changed in realtime.

You have to write down what actually is happening and keep a journal. Don't necessarily tell everybody. Just keep a journal for what is happening right now. At some point, our kids won't have any idea of the truth. They will not have any idea of what this country was, how it really happened. Who were the good guys. Who were the bad guys. Who did what.

As Michelle Obama said. Barack knows. We have to change our history. Well, that's exactly what's happening. But it's happening at a very rapid pace.

We have to preserve our history. It is being systematically erased.

I first said this fifteen years ago, people need clay plots. We have to preserve our history as people preserved histories in ancient days, with the dead see scrolls, by putting them in caves in a clay pot. We have to preserve our history. It is being systematically erased. And I don't mean just the history of the founding of our country. I mean the history that's happening right now.

And the history that's happening right now, you're a problem if you're a conservative or a Christian. You are now a problem on the left, if you disagree and fall out of line at all. This is becoming a fascistic party. And you know what a fascist is. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. If you believe it's my way or the highway, if you believe that people don't have a right to their opinion or don't have a right to their own life — you could do be a fascist.

Christianity might seem pretty well-protected in the U.S., but that's not the case in many parts of the globe.

On Easter Sunday, suicide bombers made the news for killing 290 innocent Christians in Sri Lanka and injuring another 500. On Tuesday, ISIS
claimed responsibility for the massacre. Of course, the Western world mourned this tragic loss of life on a holy day of worship, but we forget that this isn't an isolated incident. Indeed, Christians are discriminated at extreme levels worldwide, and it needs to be brought to light. And whenever we do highlight brutal persecutions such as the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, we need to call them what they are — targeted attacks against Christians. Sadly, many of our politicians are deathly afraid to do so.

A 2018 Pew Research Center
study found that Christians are harassed in 144 countries — the most of any other faith — slightly outnumbering Muslims for the top of the list. Additionally, Open Doors, a non-profit organization that works to serve persecuted Christians worldwide, found in their 2019 World Watch List that over 245 million Christians are seriously discriminated against for their religious beliefs. Sadly, this translates into 4,136 Christians killed and 2,625 either arrested, sentenced, imprisoned, or detained without trial over the year-long study period. And when it comes to churches, those in Sri Lanka were merely added to a long list of 1,266 Christian buildings attacked for their religion.

These breathtaking stats receive very little coverage in the Western world. And there seems to be a profound hesitation from politicians in discussing the issue of persecution against Christians. In the case of the Sri Lanka bombings, there's even a reluctance to use the word "Christian."

After the horrific Pittsburgh Synagogue and New Zealand Mosque shootings, Democrats rightfully acknowledged the disturbing trend of targeted attacks against Jews and Muslims. But some of these same politicians refer to the Sri Lanka bombings with careless ambiguity.

So why is it so hard for our leaders to acknowledge the persecutions Christians face?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, for instance, certainly did — calling the incursions "attacks on Easter worshippers." Understandably, the term confused and frustrated many Christians. Although, supporters of these politicians argued the term was appropriate since a recent Associated Press
report used it, and it was later picked up by a variety of media outlets, including Fox News. However, as more Democrats like 2020 presidential candidate Julián Castro and Rep. Dan Kildee continued to use the phrase "Easter worshippers," it became clear that these politicians were going out of their way to avoid calling a spade a spade.

So why is it so hard for our leaders to acknowledge the persecutions Christians face? For starters, Christianity in democratic countries like the U.S. is seen differently than in devastated countries like Somalia. According to Pew Research, over
70% of Americans are Christian, with 66% of those Christians being white and 35% baby boomers. So while diverse Christians from all over the world are persecuted for their faith—in the U.S., Christians are a dominant religion full of old white people. This places Christians at the bottom of progressives' absurd intersectional totem poll, therefore leaving little sympathy for their cause. However, the differing experiences of Christians worldwide doesn't take away from the fact that they are unified in their beliefs.

By refusing to name the faith of the Sri Lankan martyrs, politicians are sending a message that they have very little, if no, concern about the growing amount of persecution against Christians worldwide.

Martyrs don't deserve to be known as "Easter worshippers." They should be known by the Christian faith they gave their lives for. Decent politicians need to call the tragedy in Sri Lanka what it is — a vicious attack on the Christian faith.

Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) is a writer for Young Voices and Vice President of Lone Conservative. His work can be found in the Washington Examiner, Townhall, FEE, and more.